Ignore all rules

Ignore all rules is one of the oldest wiki guidelines, not only on Wikimedia wikis but on the early wikis whose creators and editors contributed mightily to the founding of Wikipedia. It is considered policy on the English Wikipedia, and has been the subject of many essays there and here. It is embodied in the following statement:

If a rule prevents you from improving or maintaining a project, ignore it.

Some of the changes to Wiki editing over the years have hedged slightly against this guideline—the creation of user accounts, of page history, of formal policies rather than sets of related essays. IAR is directly opposed to the principle of wikibureaucracy that harmful behavior should be prevented by forcing users to strictly adhere to a set of regulations.

See also

• "IAR is policy, always has been"
• The first of Wikipedia's RulesToConsider
• Wikipedia:What "Ignore all rules" means
• Wikipedia:Understanding IAR
• Common sense